How big is this Easter Bunny fellow anyway?

Like many holidays, Easter is often associated with family memories. For me, Easter is associated with the memory of other families.

It was 1975 just before Easter. The Vietnam war was ending ignominiously, with President Ford promising full American support right up through the time we left thousands of South Vietnamese sympathizers behind to confront new Communist rulers. Or risk death at sea as desperate boat people.

Thanks to a tip from intelligence sources that the end of South Vietnam was near, my news employer had arranged to evacuate its two local Vietnamese interpreters and their extended families, maybe two dozen women, children and grandparents. None had ever been outside Vietnam.

With thousands of other refugees, they landed in Guam, a U.S. island territory about to be inundated by more than 120,000 scared people, ready with no other choice now but to join the long historic line of new Americans.

As the stream of chartered jumbo jets landed at Guam's Andersen Air Force Base around the clock, their frightened faces peered through the oval windows. They saw lines of parked B-52's, each with an armed sentinel, the planes that had for years bombed their country.

For processing, most arrivals moved by bus to a rapidly-growing tent city, so large that soon it would have its own Zipcode.

Part of my assignment was to welcome, supply and shepherd our two employees and their many relatives through immigration and on to the mainland, where colleagues were acquiring apartments and furniture for them.

Every day I would visit them inside the government perimeter in military barracks. The clothing they had was what they'd been wearing. They needed everything, down to underwear. Have you ever tried to describe to a Sears clerk the bust size of several Asian women you'd seen one time?

Each visit I would stay a while to answer questions. These men had interpreted Vietnam's exotic culture and language for many correspondents and steered us all from potentially lethal harm numerous times.

One afternoon the senior interpreter -- I'll call him Tran -- asked about this Easter business he'd heard on the radio. Sounded like a children's holiday with candy and toys, and he wanted his kids to jump right into American culture.

I explained it was a profoundly religious day he would learn about later. But yes, attached to Easter were customs like candy and other things. By now, both families had gathered around for storytime. Everyone squatted on the floor next to empty chairs. Tran began translating my answers about this Easter business. Everyone was curious. I was the camp's matinee.

Well, just before Easter, I said, parents buy a whole bunch of these chicken eggs, hardboil them and then color and decorate them.

Why?

Well, it's tradition. They look pretty. He translated. The crowd was slightly puzzled.

Do you eat them?

No. Well, not right then.

What do you do with these colored chicken eggs?

Well, at night the parents and grandparents hide all the chicken eggs around the house.

Translation. OK, no sense there. But Americans are a strange people.

And then in the morning, I said, the parents tell the children that a large rabbit had sneaked into the house during the night and hidden all the chicken eggs.

Tran stared at me.

A large rabbit?

Yes, a large rabbit. The Easter bunny.

He repeated that in Vietnamese. Dead silence descended. The children looked worried. No one spoke. Everyone stared. At me.

By now, the room had filled with other families eager to hear the visiting lecturer on American life. They stared too. Silently.

A question from the back. How large exactly are rabbits in America?

Well, large enough to go around hiding the eggs, I laughed. Alone. But they're not real rabbits, you understand. They're just made-up. It's a story that parents tell. To explain the eggs disappearing.

Another question: Is it always rabbits that hide the chicken eggs?

Yes. Always rabbits. In the story. That parents tell. To the children. On Easter morning.

Then what?

Then the excited children run all over the house looking for the colored chicken eggs. And they find most of them.

The newcomers stared blankly. They didn't want to offend the American. Who knew what he might do?

Then what?

Usually, everybody eats too much candy. Then, they go to church or eat a nice meal together.

What kind of candy?

Oh, jelly beans. Chocolate rabbits. Tran went to ask something. They're not real chocolate rabbits, I said. They're just chocolate in the shape of rabbits. I'll bring some tomorrow.

What about the decorated chicken eggs? Do you take them as gifts to the church?

No. No. The eggs just go in the refrigerator. And children get them in school lunches for the next month.

Silence.

Broken only when Tran led gentle applause.

To avoid a refugee run on the airport that afternoon, I opted to leave for others in that exotic culture called America the story of the obese man in a red suit and magic sleigh who circumnavigates the globe in one night thanks to reindeer who fly, delivering gifts made by tiny people who live at the North Pole.

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